Heat

I'm thinking about poisons. The type that go on apples, the type that go on spindles. Or perhaps the best kind are the curses-- you don't have to put a stopper in those, add the skull & crossbones. They are ultra portable, no?

Curses. Spite. They're always part of fairy tales; bad faeries seem ready to drop one at the slightest offense. Leave me off the party invitation list, will you? My RSVP will be on its way as a few words that will blight your fields, leave you asleep for an aeon, keep you from being fruitful.

But then, too often, the poison comes back to you, doesn't it? The stepmother swings from the heights in her red-iron-hot shoes. Dancing to the victor's music. The mirror is smashed. The dwarves dig, and dig, and dig, and the wicked fairies find themselves bound in iron and salt water and tossed deep. Deep.

The spite that gets unsaid, though, that poison eats at you. If you keep it inside, you find it resurfacing, so often you need a warning label on your own thoughts. Easier, perhaps, to let a young couple into your house, pretend to linger near the oven door, let yourself be pushed in. Easier to surrender. Let your wickedness finally be a cautionary tale to others.

Who, after all, really mourns the wicked?